Ecce Homo, Christ’s Church and Homosexuality – UPDATE

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

My column at First Things this week did not start out addressing the coming, unstoppable and necessary confrontation between the church and the homosexual community, but then I read about Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s decision to support a gay member of a parish council over the priest who wished to unseat him, and Edward Peter’s sensible response. With Ross Douthat’s excellent, must-read book, Bad Religion; How We Became a Nation of Heretics swirling in my head, the column simply bent to... Read more

A GREAT Communion Gift!

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

It’s almost time for all the little girls in white and the little boys in blue (or white) to make their First Holy Communion, and every year I get folks writing me asking, “what is a good gift?” The kids usually get rosaries and prayerbooks in their “Communion Kits” so, what else is good? This. This is good Amy Welborn Dubruiel and Ann Kissane Engelhart collaborated on this charming, delightfully illustrated chronicle of a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI (who... Read more

A Good Week for Confession!

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

Levering: Jesus and the Demise of Death

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

In promoting this book giveaway, I realized I had another book I wanted to bring to your attention: the Patheos Book Club is taking a look at Matthew Levering’s Jesus and the Demise of Death — which seems like excellent reading for the season, particularly for this week and next week, if this intro excerpt is any indication! In his intro, Levering writes: I seek to contribute to the “robust recovery of apocalyptic teaching and preaching” by setting forth a... Read more

My Favorite Fenway Moment!

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

Fenway Park is 100 years old! So, as we gear up for the start of the baseball season, here is my official Best Memory of Fenway: It was 2003. Eight innings into yet-another nail-biter of a series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, there came a guttural wail from the stands at Fenway Park. “For the love of God . . .” It was one lone voice; a man—whose sound was remarkably reminiscent of the late... Read more

Want a Free Book?

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

Image Books, a Random House imprint, and Patheos are giving away 100 copies of Mother Teresa’s book, Where There is Love, There is God. Who doesn’t like free books? And it’s Mother Teresa! Who doesn’t like Mother Teresa (yes, yes, I know, Christopher Hitchens, but he may have changed his mind by now…) Sign up, here! You get the Catholic Portal newsletter, too, if you want it, which — naturally — I hope you will! Don’t forget to check out... Read more

Trayvon and the MSM: “Who will guard the guardians?” UPDATED

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

It’s an ironic question, given George Zimmerman’s own ideas about guardianship, but it’s one that needs to be asked of the mainstream press. A long time ago, in the midst of of a month-long discussion on media, I noted a piece by a journalist who bristled at the existence of alternative media. To his way of thinking, the internets lacked the scruples, ethics, and sensibilities of “the mediating intelligences” within traditional, mainstream media. I had suggested, back then, that the... Read more

Palm Sunday and the Shifts of Lent

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Elizabeth Scalia

Elizabeth Duffy has a strong piece on how Lent begins to feel, after a while: It’s always around this time of year that I wish I had given up a noun rather than a verb for Lent—some thing, some arbitrary thing that in and of itself is not bad, but would just be a concrete thing to sacrifice, so that on Easter Sunday, I can partake of it after forty days of abstinence, and mark the end of the Sacrificial... Read more

Candice Bergen’s Stroke

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:02 am By Elizabeth Scalia

(Photo: Marc Stamas/Getty Images) Wow, she still looks very beautiful, and I really like her attitude: “People complain about parts for women, people complain about getting old,” she says. “It’s a privilege to get old.” The New York Magazine piece is a good, and quick, read; I found Bergen’s revelation about her stroke to be most interesting: Rounder of face, grayer and wispier of hair, Bergen tells me that in the fall of 2006, she had a minor stroke. She... Read more

Obamacare 6-2: Who will be Justice Defector?

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:02 am By Elizabeth Scalia

Had to run some errands over lunch and flipped on the radio to see what Rush was talking about. Basically, he was rehashing this piece from the WaPo — the theory that if the Supremes come down 5-4 in favor of Obamacare, then Chief Justice Roberts — meaning to ease social tensions with a 6-2 — will go with it, so he can himself write the majority opinion: Walter Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general and one of the health-care... Read more